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"I just called everyone in my phone and told them about Jesus." I was stunned. I didn't even know she was a Christian. She certainly didn't seem like one! Then I felt convicted. In one afternoon, this student had done more evangelism than I'd done in the past year. And I was the one in full-time ministry.
John 4:27-42
Then the woman left her water jar, went into town, and told the people, "Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Messiah?" They left the town and made their way to him. In the meantime the disciples kept urging him, "Rabbi, eat something." But he said, "I have food to eat that you don't know about." The disciples said to one another, "Could someone have brought him something to eat?" "My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work," Jesus told them. "Don't you say, 'There are still four more months, and then comes the harvest'? Listen to what I'm telling you: Open your eyes and look at the fields, because they are ready for harvest. The reaper is already receiving pay and gathering fruit for eternal life, so that the sower and reaper can rejoice together. For in this case the saying is true: 'One sows and another reaps.' I sent you to reap what you didn't labor for; others have labored, and you have benefited from their labor." Now many Samaritans from that town believed in him because of what the woman said when she testified, "He told me everything I ever did." So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them, and he stayed there two days. Many more believed because of what he said. And they told the woman, "We no longer believe because of what you said, since we have heard for ourselves and know that this really is the Savior of the world."
The woman left her water jar—the one item that kept her alive—at the well. This little detail tells us that a spring of water was overflowing in her life. For her entire life, knowing "everything she ever did" was the gossip that trashed her reputation. But after meeting Jesus, her shame is transformed into boldness. Now her secrets point to Jesus. It's an act of radical love. She goes to the people who have excluded her and invites them to get on the inside track with God. Jesus' respectable disciples went into town, bought groceries, and told no one about the Messiah (the promised one who would save God's people) They thought they'd done an honest day's work. Jesus has to tell them: you're about to benefit from someone else's labor. I recently talked to a guy who told me all about his alcoholism and drug addiction. He wanted me to know how bad it was so he could tell me how good Jesus was. He'd been sober for years, but he kept bringing up his past so others could find what they needed. By the time Jesus leaves this town, this woman everyone despised is a community hero. She's not only spiritually restored, but socially honored. And the Samaritans—spiritual outsiders from a Jewish perspective—give Jesus a title no one else in the Gospels uses: "Savior of the world." Sometimes those farthest from religious respectability are closest to seeing who Jesus really is. What if our problems are the pathway to meeting Jesus?
What surprises you about how the Samaritan woman talks about Jesus to her neighbors?
What makes you feel unqualified to tell someone about your faith?
Who in your life might be surprised to hear what Jesus means to you?
Text one person who doesn't fit the "religious" profile: "Hey, can I tell you about something that's been meaningful to me lately?"
84 friends have opened a study shared with them.